brioux.tv: the podcast

Giddyap, pardner. This week's episode of brioux.tv: the podcast takes a deep dive into everything you need to know about collecting your favourite TV shows on DVD. My guest is archivist, curator and classic TV expert Andrew J. Klyde, executive producer of Bonanza: The Official Complete Series.
For many boomers, Sunday nights were spent with your family crowded around the one set in the house watching Disney, Ed Sullivan at 8 and then at 9, Bonanza. Throughout its 14-season, 431-episode run, Bonanza was the most-popular TV series of the 1960s.
Besides making sure every episode was restored and transferred from 35 mm camera negatives, Klyde packed extras and bonus materials into the Bonanza Complete Series DVDs. The result is a Master Class on the history of 20th century television.
For example: In digging through the background of Ottawa-born actor Lorne Greene, not the first choice to play ranch patriarch Ben Cartwright, Klyde sourced and added rarely seen profiles and documentaries from the CBC and other Canadian sources.
He even added an interview I did back in 1991 with Michael Landon, who played Little Joe on the series and went on to Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven. Sadly, Landon died of cancer three months after we spoke.
I'm proud to play a small role in such a handsome salute to this series. Listen as Klyde takes us back to the Ponderosa with dozens of behind-the-scenes stories. Then if you have a classic TV fan on your Christmas list, take note: Bonanza: The Official Complete Series DVD set is on sale now at Amazon.

I like my podcast guests to feel comfortable. That's not always possible over a zoom call, but that didn't stop Jennifer Finnigan, currently back for a second season on CBC's comedy-drama Moonshine. For our interview, the Montreal native chose to stay in bed.
That is a level of intimacy and/or laziness usually reserved for close friends or relatives so I'm flattered. Really.
Besides, Finnigan has been spending long days in production on an already ordered third season of the series, shot on the southern shore of Nova Scotia.
Created by Sheri Elwood (Call Me Fitz), Moonshine is about a ramshackle summer resort run by one whacked out family. Finnigan plays Lidia, the prodigal sister who returns from America. When her hippie parents (Peter MacNeill and Corrine Koslo) retire, Lidia gets drawn into a battle with her freaked out siblings for control of the joint.
Lidia's life takes a turn when she finds out her lying douche of a hubby was cheating on her. Finnigan's real-life husband Jonathan Silverman stepped right into the part.
The couple and their five-year-old daughter moved to Nova Scotia to work on the series. They've been having a blast working on Moonshine with Anastasia Phillips, Emma Hunter, Tom Stevens, Alexander Nunez and others. This season, Allan Hawco plays Lidia's new biker boy.
We also talk about Finnigan's past roles, including The Bold and the Beautiful (where she won three daytime Emmys), Crossing Jordan, Tyrant and Salvation. May all future interviews be this relaxed.

Author Ira Wells spent three years working on "Norman Jewison: A Director's Life." A full year of that was pouring over Jewison's papers, annotated scripts and other manuscripts at Victoria College at the University of Toronto -- where Wells is an assistant professor of literature.
He writes that Jewison's 24 feature films "could just as easily have been a dozen, or three or none." Despite directing two films -- "In the Heat of the Night" and "Moonstruck"-- to Best Picture Oscar wins, landing the next film deal never got any easier. It helped that behind Jewison's nice guy, all-Canadian persona, beats the heart of a lion. As Burt Reynolds once mused, "He must be able to kick the shit out of people in meetings."
Jewison's other talent was to be the director he needed to be in relation to the talent at hand. He could be, as Wells describes him, "a nurturing father figure, a wise older brother, on old fling." Sometimes he was all three on the same film, as he was on the set of "Agnes of God."
Wells goes through Jewison's diverse catalogue -- "The Russians Are Coming...," "The Thomas Crown Affair," "Fiddler on the Roof," "Rollerball," "A Soldier's Story" and "The Hurricane," among others. He takes us through the director's early days at the CBC in Toronto as well as directing superstars such as Judy Garland and Harry Belafonte in American television. He addresses Jewison's passion for mentoring the next generations of filmmakers with the Canadian Film Centre.
The title of Jewison's own 2004 autobiography is "This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me" and he meant it. As Wells writes, "The image that emerges from the thousands of pages of letters, contracts, memos, production schedules, casting notes, draft screenplays and countless other documents is of a director fighting for every frame of his vision."

I think I was about 35 before I figured out that Billy Van played all those crazy characters on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
The series, consisting of 130 episodes cranked out over nine months, premiered more than 50 years ago in 1971. It is one of the most eccentric and enduring, locally-produced, TV shows ever made in Canada. It broke so many rules in childrens television that you'd have to cut it down to about four minutes to get it on a broadcast network today. (Edited versions still play on Crave, Tubi and YouTube.)
My guest on this podcast is Mitch Markowitz whose older brother Riff Markowitz took the idea of a horror-spoof kiddie show to Hamilton's CHCH. Mitch helped produce but also, at his brother's urging, appeared on-camera in short segments as "Super Hippy." Vincent Price was flown up from Hollywood to shoot 400 introductory segments which helped the Markowitz's syndicate the series stateside. Jumbo-sized Fishka Rais played Igor, assistant to The Count, Billy Van.
Van, later a key comedy player on Sony & Cher, also played Griselda the Ghastly Gourmet, The Librarian, Bwana Clyde Batty, The Oracle, The Maharishi and the Wolfman -- the latter a werewolf disc jockey.
Van wasn't supposed to play any of them, but, as Markowitz relates, he stepped in when a Plan-A that would never fly today didn't pan out. Van's tour-de-force was an inspiration to Mike Myers, Jim Carrey and other Canadians who grew up with the series before hitting it big in Hollywood.
Markowitz shares those stories and talks about the recent animated spinoff in a Halloween party episode even "Brucie" -- a copyright-infringing monster The Count was always trying to revive -- would enjoy.

Come on down Canada, says Phil Keoghan.

The New Zealand-born host of The Amazing Race is throwing the doors open to any Canadian who wants to prove themselves on his other show, Tough as Nails.

Canadian citizens 21 or older can now apply to be on the CBS series, which will be retuning next season on Global. Tough as Nails features competitors at work sites who are challenged to prove themselves as individuals and as team members.

Keoghan, 54, agrees that the war in Ukraine has raised the bar when it comes to toughness under fire. He created this series, together with his wife Louise Rodrigues, with an aim to present a positive salute to ordinary heroes.

There’s also a substantial cash prize: $200,000 – American – and a Ford Super Duty truck.

Keoghan is hoping Canadians do well. After all, at one time he enjoyed landed immigrant status. His family lived in Guelph, Ont., for nearly four years when Keoghan was a lad, and he’s been back many times since.

Back in the ‘90s, however, a Calgary border official tore up his Canadian status card. That was a drag, he says. “I was kind of proud of being a landed Canadian immigrant.”

Good thing he doesn’t hold any grudges. Canadians can fill out a CBS casting application for Tough as Nails by following this link. Listen to the podcast to get more information. You’ll also hear Keoghan’s inspired answer to how people of all ages can seize the day with his “No Opportunity Wasted” philosophy.